


a wolf at your throat, a dragon at your back

by winterbones



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 4k and still not calling him aegon, F/M, also fuck that ridiculous annulment plot, fuck rhaegar targaryen tbqh, in fact this might be an anti-aegon manifesto, porn with (accidental) plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 04:41:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12005232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterbones/pseuds/winterbones
Summary: jon handles the news as well as you'd think, but not for the reasons you'd assume.dany handles it worse.





	a wolf at your throat, a dragon at your back

Daenerys wasn’t often at a loss for words, couldn’t let herself be. She’d learned the power of them, of prophecy and revelation, of providence, how the right words could tear a city down or raise an army up. Even when she’d had nothing she’d had her words— _daughter of dragons, fire and blood, never nothing_ —but here now, with a bastard turned king’s back to her, she stumbled and faltered, her tongue stilling over things that should have come easy.

Instead she stood in silence, facing Jon Snow’s stiff shoulders. He had to know she was behind him, she hadn’t been quiet when she’d entered, but he’d yet to acknowledge her presence. It tickled her ire. She wasn’t used to being ignored and she’d not begrudged him those three days when he’d slipped quietly away from Winterfell, his direwolf his only companion, leaving her to Tyrion and Varys’s sharp whispers, Lady Stark’s mistrustful eyes, the Northern bannermen’s barely restrained hostility, even Brandon Stark’s bloodless sympathy.

She’d had no peace for the last three days, but she’d shaken her advisors off tonight, ignored Tyrion’s quiet rebuke. The dead and the war and the living would have to wait. She would have this.

But she hesitated, circled around what she would say, what she should say, what she could. She settled on, “You’re angry with me,” which, at least, was true.

Jon didn’t deny it, his shoulders stiffening. The only sound after was the crackle and pop of wood in the hearth as he stared at it and the sound of Dany closing the door.

How severe he looked, in his black leathers and dark trousers, his heavy fur cloak. It was hard to believe he was a dragon at all, he had such a look of the wolf about him. But she had no reason to doubt Brandon Stark. He’d reminded her of Quaithe of the Shadow, even Mirri Maz Duur, magic clinging to every follicle of hair, routing deep grooves into his skin. He’d cut his brother— _his cousin_ —off at his knees, face serene, and Dany thought no assassin could have done better.

“Jon,” she said. His hand clenched around the cold, dark stone above the hearth. “I’m not leaving until you speak with me.”

“ _Now_ you want to speak with me,” Jon finally said, voice dark and rough, his thick northern brogue making each of his words sound clipped and short. When she had first met him it had scrapped her raw, made her feel as he was belittling her and all she had struggled for, but now his tone made her shiver and her skin pimple with gooseflesh. “After you’ve decided everything on my behalf?”

The Great Hall was poorly done, Dany could admit that much. She’d been standing on shifting ground, her heart demanding one thing, her mind another. She hadn’t meant it to be callous, or careless, she’d only wanted it done, to finish it so she could crawl into her bed of furs and lick her wounds. _If I look back I am lost._

“What was I supposed to do? Tyrion and Varys hissing in my ear, your sisters looking ready to kill me, rumors filling Winterfell to bursting, and you were gone. What was I supposed to do? Wait for your return?” The idea filled Dany’s mouth with something acidic and bitter. She had spent too long waiting on people—Viserys to use her as he pleased, Drogo to take her home. “I _had_ to do something, Jon.”

“And this is what you did.” He spun to her, dark eyes blazing, and Dany almost drew back. He was such an even-tempered, quiet man it was a shock to see rage—he’d only hinted at it before, charging the White Walkers when her son Viserion had died, speaking of the abuse his sister had suffered, of the destruction of his home by the Lannisters—darkly stamped on his face. _It’s the dragon in him_ , Dany thought, but another voice whispered— _it’s the wolf_. “Without even asking what I wanted?”

Dany was not a woman to be cowed, not anymore. _I am the dragon’s daughter._ “Perhaps if you’d stayed we would not have had to make those decisions without you.”

The muscles in Jon’s jaw bunched and Dany had the near desperate urge to cross to him and kiss until all the tension in his body eased. But no. She remembered what her Hand had said, what she had said, that as the Stark family had reacted in a spectrum of shock and horror new possibilities had unfolded before Dany. _I am not the last dragon._ She was not alone, as she had always thought and mourned, but she had never felt lonelier looking into Jon Snow’s face and realizing what it meant. _I will have to give him up._

“I won’t do it,” Jon said, his voice hard and low. He took an abbreviated step toward, hands clenched at his side. He did not reach for her and Dany had to stiffen against the unconscious hurt. “I’ll deny it to my dying day. I’ll take no name but Jon Snow for my own. Bastard son of Eddard Stark.”

He’d said as much in the Great Hall, when he’d finally returned to them. By then Dany, Varys, and Tyrion had reached their decision. She thought now it could have been handled more delicately, but she had just wanted it over and done and Tyrion and Varys had been worrying about successions and the fate of nations.

Jon laughed, but it was turned inward like his smile, bitter and sharp and aimed at himself. “What greater joke would there be? Setting a bastard on the Iron Throne.”

Pointing out that Joffery and Tommen, the two kings before Cersei Lannister, were bastards—if their parentage was true. “Varys assures me that was never a true possbility. My father was mistrustful of Elia Martell and disinherited Rhaegar’s entire line to make Viserys his heir. And even then… the annulment wouldn’t have stood. Rhaegar’s marriage had been consummated and produced two offspring, not even the High Septon couldn’t argue against that.” Her brother had carelessly, and easily, tried to make bastards of his children and cast his wife aside. It was an uncomfortable truth Dany had to approach, that her brother might not have been as noble as she had believed, a true knight and a golden hero, a girl’s fantasy to drive away the pain and hunger and terror of her exiled youth.

A bitter, barking laugh. “So I was not even a worthy threat?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. In fact, I didn’t even _think_ of it.” What would she had done? If Jon had been a different man and had set his eyes on the throne that was Dany’s if not by succession then by sacrifice, by blood and fire? But if Jon had been a different man he would not have been King in the North, and Dany would not have sacrificed her own child to save him, would not have come with him to this unforgiving place, would not have… “It was Varys. He was quick to reassure me. I think he was more annoyed than anything that this was a secret he couldn’t ferret out.”

“No doubt, he would’ve helped smother me in the crib if he’d known.” Jon’s eyes lifted to hers and she saw what he thought— _like he tried to do with you_. “The most dishonest thing Eddard Stark has ever done, and it was still nobler than most.”

“He loved you. He loved your sister.” Eddard Stark had risked his life, his wife’s life, his children’s life by harboring the offspring of a disposed prince. He’d done it for his sister. _Viserys would have never taken such a risk for me._ Eddard Stark was a true and good man and Dany found the hate she harbored for him picked away like chipped ice.

Jon said nothing to that. His father—his uncle—was an intense, quiet pain that he didn’t share with anyone. Dany felt the ghosts that clung to Winterfell like heavy chains. Two brothers, a mother, and a father. They gave the place a weight, an all-consuming silence. More than once she’d seen the Lady of Winterfell trail off, her eyes staring off into some old memory, or the little Stark girl Arya walking on her deer-nimble legs only to come to an abrupt halt, fingers skimming over something that invoked a recollection of days past.

All Dany had was the distorted memories of a red door and the scent of lemons from her open window. _Would Rhaegar have loved me like Jon loved his sisters?_ Rhaegar had been a man grown with children when Dany had only been a stirring in her mother’s womb. _Would Viserys have been kinder? Would I count Princess Rhaenys a friend? Would I already be wed and bed to Prince Aegon?_

The possibilities made her teeth ache. Dany wanted home, wanted to plant trees and see them grow. The dragons planted no trees. _But I am not only a dragon, I am a woman too._

“I resented it, all my life. What I was. Baseborn bastard, proof of my father’s shame, a stain on Lady Catelyn’s happiness.” Jon looked down at his bare hand, fist clenched. Fire could not kill a dragon, but she felt the burn scars on his palm skimming over her hip. “But I’d rather be Eddard Stark’s bastard than Rhaegar Taryaryen’s trueborn son.”

Her heart pinched, part in pain, part in indignation. Cruelty and suffering had come from her house, yes, but the Targaryens had built something great. The Iron Throne was theirs, built out of ashes and dragonflame, and houses large and small coveted it. And Jon, whether he wanted to admit it or not, carried the blood of conquerors in his veins.

“You will be my heir, Jon Snow.”

That was what she had told him, when he’d come to find them in the Great Hall. She, Tyrion, Varys, and the Lady Stark who’d admirably taken over Jon’s duties when he’d left— _it’s not as if I’m not used to it_ , the young woman had muttered—had waited for him to speak, to make some proclamation. _Yes I am the son of Rhaegar Targaryen by Lyanna Stark, claimant to the Iron Throne._ But he’d said nothing, only stared at her, and so Dany _had?i >, blurted it out when she had meant to be cool and logical, and Tyrion had looked at her with a knowing gaze._

_“No,” he said it simply, curtly, left no room for argument. He’d done the same in the Great Hall. A single word and then he’d turned and left, every angle of his body brimming with barely throttled angry. Dany had thought for a moment he’d throttle _her_ —or kiss her, you could never tell with a wolf—he looked so ready to leap over the table._

_She fell back on the calm façade that was the Dragon Queen, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons. “You may hate it, but you cannot deny the blood in your veins. Dragon’s blood along with wolf’s blood. Cry false all you like, it changes nothing. When I go to battle with the Night King, I will do so with a successor.”_

_She had told no one—Tyrion or Varys or Jorah or Jon—that a sense of promotion had come upon her in the recent days, the same startling feeling that had overcome her after Drogo and her son had died, a certain knowing that could not be explained but could not be ignored. She saw herself atop Drogon, his wings lifting them into the snow-heavy air, and she heard another roar, one that shattered her stillness, and saw a burst of blue flames across her eyes. Fire that _could_ kill a dragon._

_“Someone else then,” Jon said sharply. “Not me.”_

_“There is no one else,” Dany insisted. “Only me. And you. We are the last dragons.”_

_The stubborn tick in his jaw was back and Dany could see him digging his feet in, all dogged Northern pride. But Dany was a dragon and a dragon bowed to no one, was just as tenacious as a wolf. _I did not travel across the Great Grass Sea, did not bend slaver cities beneath my boot, sail to this world of snow and death to be denied.__

_“And this is what being a dragon means, Your Grace?” There was almost a sneer in his voice and it caught Dany by surprise. The anger she could understand, as cautious and muted and staid as Jon often was, the possibility of violence, of danger, of rage always seemed to linger just under his skin, an intriguing hint of lethality. But this was bitterness, a resentment that he had nursed for hours. “A pawn to move about as you please? To be dangled like some wriggling bait on a hook? Will you and Tyrion be parading all the eligible ladies of Westeros through Winterfell in between battle plans and council meetings?”_

_Dany couldn’t stop her wince and wished she could go back, take it all back, but she’d only wanted to get it over with, and had charged blindly ahead. It had been Varys’s who’d brought it up. _It seems that we’ve solved out succession problem_ , the spider had said, and had proceeded to list out a number of fine Westerosi ladies that would be perfect for the new Targaryen heir to take to wife. And Tyrion had looked at Dany and Dany had looked at her hands and wished and prayed she was somewhere else, anywhere else. It doesn’t matter, she’d told herself, swallowing the lump at her throat, _he won’t want anything to do with me now, not after.__

_It was the Targaryen way, to marry brother to sister, nephew to aunt. But Jon had been raised a Stark, and she recalled the look on his face when he stared at her, Bran’s words carving hollows in the spaces between them. Dany had promised herself that she’d be different than her family, learn from the mistakes they’d made, but the blood always told and even after it hadn’t mattered to her. She’d still wanted Jon and he hadn’t wanted her and she’d thought _but I could still plant trees.__

_“I can’t have children.” It was always like a knife to her stomach, saying the words out loud. Her entire body clenched, remembering what it was like to hold and shelter Rhaego inside her. _But I traded his life for my sun and stars and lost them both._ Jon had cast doubt on that belief, in the Dragonpit at King’s Landing, but Dany hadn’t believed him. She’d held faith to that single belief for so long it was almost comforting. _I can’t have children, none except my dragons_. But Jon could, could do the one thing she could not. The Targaryen line didn’t need end with her._

_“I don’t care.”_

_Her back touched the cool wood of Jon’s door and Dany realized with a jolt she’d been letting him crowd her, with each step he took toward her she’d taken one back, and _no one_ crowded Daenerys Targaryen. She should have bristled at his show of dominance, he’d only been King in the North a few months before he’d met her and claimed to never have wanted the title in the first place _but_ he’d been Lord Commander before that and some part of him had grown used to having his words heard and obeyed. But she was born to her queenship, born to command, and had sworn long, long ago never to be intimidated again._

_With a word, she could have him set ablaze, have a hundred swords claiming to remove his head, each of her bloodriders lined up to gut him. He knew this, she knew this, but his cloak brushed against her legs and she trembled. It wasn’t fear, the tingle up her spine, it was electric, a coil of anticipation. Jon’s eyes were dark, black and burning like coals, and Dany felt the heavy beating of her heart in her throat._

_Her swallowed, her throat working rapidly. Jon wasn’t a tall man, but Dany was much smaller and this close she needed to tilt her chin to keep eye contact. “You are the last chance of our House, Jon.” She ignored the low, harsh sound of protest that escaped him. “You would be my heir, and your children would sit the throne after you, and you—”_

_“ _No.” His hand, ungloved and covered in ropy burn scars, encircled her wrists and lifted them above her head. She should have tensed, screamed, shoved him away. Instead her traitorous body went soft, yielding. _I should not, but I do want this.___

__“You’re the one who left,” she said, voice barely a whisper, as if anything louder would break the stillness of the room. “Who turned away from _me_ when your brother told you who you were. Do you even want me still?”_ _

__His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips and they parted. Jon didn’t even seem aware of the way he angled towards her, the way his body pressed against hers, hot and hard and making her gasp. “Yes. Gods help me, _yes_.”_ _

__She would have told him that the dragons answered to no god, old or new, many-faced or wreathed in flame, but his mouth was there on hers, capturing her words. Her wrists were still braceleted by his hands and she flexed against the grip, unsure if she wanted to break free. She knew his taste, fresh as snow, slightly bitter—she’d begun to think of it as a _north_ taste, as if the winter his family always claimed would come had been driven deep into his bones. His tongue sunk into her mouth, demanding entreaty. Dany was fire and flame and heat. She shouldn’t be the one melting, yet her body transformed into one long sigh of yearning, of wanting._ _

__Jon broke away with a gasp, Dany leaning forward to follow him, drunk on his taste. He released her hands but ordered in his husky, Northern accent, “Keep them there.”_ _

__It had been years since anyone had dared give _her_ an order—or at least years since it didn’t end with their death. No one commanded a dragon, not a harpy or a lion or a wolf._ _

__Dany obeyed._ _

__Jon’s heavy fur cloak seemed to enfold like a dragon’s wings would, banishing the chill of his room. His hand skimmed over the ridges of her throat, teased her collarbone, cupped the weight of one aching breast and kneading, far from the gentle touches she’d grown used to on that ship a world away. She hooked a leg around his thigh, pulling him closer, feeling his cock even through his thick trousers. _Yes_ , she thought, _yes yes_. Her body ached for a man, this man, desperate and needing._ _

__Even as Jon fumbled with her skirt and under breeches Dany kept her hands above her head, flexing her fingers but strangely acquiescent to his command. The weight of his fur cloak created a heated space between them and when she was finally able to wiggle out of her pants she felt only warm and wet and ready, her body growing slick at Jon’s hasty strokes across her thighs. His fingers caressed her center, probing and confident, and Dany barely recognized the breathy whimpers and mewls that escaped her._ _

__Her fingers curled into tight fists as Jon reared back slightly to unbuckle himself, nails scrapping at thick leather, furs rustling, the fire in the hearth and the candles set out guttering. He came back to her mouth like a man starving, hands cupped around her face, angling her mouth for the depth he wanted. Dany thought she would collapse, her legs simply giving out beneath her, but Jon braced her with his hips, the thick head of his cock brushing against her thigh and making her cry out against his mouth._ _

__She would have fumbled for his fur cloak to push off his shoulders but Jon caught her wrists as she shifted, pressing them back above her head. _“No.”__ _

__With his free hand on her hip he turned her and Dany let herself be turned, quivering and curious. It felt like she had slipped into a dreamlike world where everything was feverish and hazy. She leaned forward until her chest brushed against the wood of the door, her hips angled, her arousal slicking down her thighs as Jon hunched over her and the heavy folds of his furs fell around her naked thighs. She heard Jon shift and rustle with himself and jolted when he rubbed his cock between her thighs, until he was coated and glistening with her wetness. But she couldn’t reach for him, guide him where she needed him, her hands still locked above her head. It wasn’t a bruising grip, but it was firm, she would have to fight to get to free and while she knew Jon would let her go, she didn’t want to be free. There was something thrilling and wild about simply letting him do as he pleased, to be supplicant to him like this._ _

___“Jon,”_ she sobbed, fingers clenching and unclenching, as he stroked and petted her, one blunt finger easing inside her, stretching her, then two, then three. Her hips bucked wildly against his hand, but he was relentless, refused to give her one she wanted, only brushed against her clit, feather-light touches that kept her just on the edge of release but never enough to send her over._ _

__She felt his mouth against her hair. “No one else.” His words were not kind, rasped harshly out against her ear. Barely more than a growl. “No one else, except you.”_ _

__He guided himself into her and the pressure at this angle was new and tight and overwhelming and she could only receive him, accept him as he pushed into her, this position giving him almost complete control. The last time… but no, this wasn’t at all like when Drogo had taken her. Her entire body was a wildfire, each point of her body sensitive and burning with need. She wanted this, Jon and his thick furs at her back and his hand pinning hers to the wall._ _

__And then he was in her fully, her body stretched so fully around his cock she could only sob, his chest tight to her back. Jon curled his free hand around her throat, turning her face toward him. She opened her mouth greedily, hungrily, slipped her tongue passed his lips. With a low groan Jon’s hips snapped back and pushed forward, a hard, ruthless thrust that reverberated up the length of Dany’s back. And still she thought yes._ _

__Jon urged to her a more extreme angle, his teeth on her throat, his hand shifted to her hip where he gripped with her with a possessive, bruising force. Dany could barely catch her breath between each strong drive of his hip, her lips parted wordlessly, her hair plastered to her face with sweat. With each thrust he nudged against her clit, against some hot place deep within her, sending tremors racing through Dany. She was so _close_ so close, her muscles clenched hard around Jon’s heavy length to keep him inside her._ _

__Her name was a rough, rasping growl, his forehead pressed between her shoulder blades, as he reached around to play with her clit, rubbing against the hood of her sex in time with his thrusts. Dany’s neck arched, gaze staring unfocused at the ceiling, pulling in deep breaths as she came, the pleasure so intense it was almost too much to bear. She rotated her wrists in his grip to clutch at his fingers, felt his bite even through the heavy fabric still covering her back as he came with a groan._ _

__He braced his hands on either side of her head to keep from crushing her, but still he was a solid, firm weight on her back, his hands still tight around her wrists, body pinning hers to the door. The heat from their bodies was trapped within the confines of his cloak, nearly sweltering from their shared warmth, and she could feel him softening inside her, but she didn’t want him to pull away, wanted to keep this connection with him._ _

__“Dany.” He lifted himself on shaking arms and she heard the rustle and shift of leather as he pulled his trousers back up, but couldn’t muster the energy to say anything. She found herself strangely lethargic, content even, as he set her clothes to right. She only protested, a quiet whimper of noise, when he pulled away, the cold air a shock even fully clothed. But he gathered her up, lifted her, and brought her to his bed and sunk them into the thick heavy furs there._ _

__They were quiet after that, Dany curled up against his side. She wanted to ask what Jon was thinking, wondered if he was even now cursing himself for what he’d done, but she didn’t want to move, wanted to go on lying like this with him, until the White Walkers came and the world ended and nothing mattered._ _

___But I have never had the luxury of girlish fantasies._ _ _

__She lifted herself up on her palms to stare down into his face, brushing aside the wild tangle of his curly, dark hair. That soft look was back in his eyes, and she could see the concern and worry that. _Jon is a dragon and a wolf. He is fierce on both sides and that frightens him._ She leaned down and kissed him, to make him understand that he had pleased her, and felt his hand move cautiously to rest on the small of her back, pressing her close to him. _One day he will learn not to shy away from all those wild parts of himself, but he will always be tempered in them. And it is a good thing.__ _

__“Very well, Jon Snow,” she murmured against his lips, “there’ll be no marriage contracts in your future.”_ _

__She felt him smile. “I’m glad I could convince you to see things my way, Your Grace.” His fingers curled around the loose strands of her hair that cascaded down her back in thick waves, tugging until she arched her neck so he could place a hot, opened mouth kiss there._ _

__“But,” she said over a gasp, shivering as he began to tug at her clothes again, undoing buckles and straps. She’d learned on the path from Dragonstone to White Harbor that a wolf could be insatiable. _But so can a dragon._ “You will be my heir, Jon Snow.”_ _

__Jon pulled back, his dark eyes laid bare to her. She knew what he was thinking, that he didn’t want the throne, just like he’d never wanted to be King in the North, that being her heir meant that she might die in this fight. He could not disguise the denial in his eyes. But he said, “As you wish, my queen,” and pulled her astride him._ _

__Later, as the Night King laid in his fiery grave, and she and Jon were battered and alive and whole and left to count their dead her admitted it was the first, and only, lie he’d ever told her. “I would tolerate no world empty of you. Where you go I follow.” And Dany had wept, shielded by Jon, so no one would see the Dragon Queen lose her composure._ _

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. fuck an aegon targaryen  
> 2\. look how easy it is to hand-wave that whole "jon is the rightful king" nonsense away  
> 3\. that's because it's _bullshit_  
>  4\. rickon died to make him king in the north they'll take no more from me  
> 5\. this is born out of the desire to write a fic where jon is surprisingly chill with fucking his aunt  
> 6\. no seriously he rolled up into winterfell's great hall like "s'kay my dudes i'm cool now dany's let's bang"  
> 7\. and _dany_ is the one who is like "we have to stop screwing each other's brains out"  
>  8\. a stark in the streets, a wildling in the sheets ja feel  
> 9\. dany's definitely getting pregnant in the show i'm coming to terms  
> 10\. imo she doesn't get pregnant on the ship she gets pregnant at winterfell because of reasons  
> 11\. dirty, dirty reasons  
> 12\. and last, but certainly not least i can't stress this enough, _fuck_ rhaegar targaryen  
>  13\. what an asshole


End file.
